Title: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Hindenburg on March 17, 2009, 01:23:14 PM From looked at DMC’s cutscenes and thought “they’re cool, but are they awesome and interactive?”. Obviously, no. Thus, Ninja Blade was created. Also, they decided to make QTE’s fun.
The story: mutant worms are taking over Tokyo. You are a Ninja; you have a Blade; your blood is poisonous to mutant worms. You must kill them all before the place is nuked from orbit. It’s pretty awesome. Here’s how it works: every weapon can cause QTE attacks on ground enemies, and they’re completely optional. Y pops up above the enemy’s head, signaling the trigger. Should you choose to engage it, you get a 20% bonus on blood crystals (read: money). Should you get the first button press right, the bonus increases to 30%. Should you get the second button press right, it’s further increased to 50%. If you miss a button the enemy simply dies and you lose the opportunity to increase your bonus. If you manage to chain several of those you also get a life orb bonus. Doing long combos also increases these bonus, as does performing kill streaks. It rewards you for being good without busting your balls for being bad. The interactive cutscenes are filled with QTE’s. You won’t mind it because:
Lasts about 7-8 hours on the first time around, but you’ll most definitely want to replay it. Rating: Buy it. Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Velorath on March 17, 2009, 01:30:18 PM Here’s how it works: every weapon can cause QTE attacks on ground enemies, and they’re completely optional. Y pops up above the enemy’s head, signaling the trigger. Should you choose to engage it, you get a 20% bonus on blood crystals (read: money). Isn't that more or less how God of War works? Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: schild on March 17, 2009, 01:39:08 PM Here’s how it works: every weapon can cause QTE attacks on ground enemies, and they’re completely optional. Y pops up above the enemy’s head, signaling the trigger. Should you choose to engage it, you get a 20% bonus on blood crystals (read: money). Isn't that more or less how God of War works? Depends, the "QTE" on regular ground enemies was actually attack/stagger based and really wasn't a QTE, it was just a 1 hit kill and it was, iirc, always the 'O' button. Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Hindenburg on March 17, 2009, 01:39:29 PM Nah, in GoW every enemy would drop specific kinds of orbs. Minotaurs, for example, would always drop green if you QTE'd them to death. You should also consider that with some enemies, if you opted to skip the QTE's, the battle would last much longer (cyclops, medusa), so, not really optional.
Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Margalis on March 17, 2009, 11:42:26 PM I tried playing the demo of this, it was QTE crazy. 5 seconds into the game I had already failed my first QTE.
The game as a whole seemed cool in a way but really it reminds me of olds game like Dragon's Lair. Strange to think about it that way. Same gameplay for ultimately the same reasons. That said judging solely on demos it's better than NG2. Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Azazel on March 18, 2009, 04:37:28 AM Yeah, playing the demo just now the impression I took away from it was a beautiful looking mash-up of Ninja Gaiden type gameplay with Dragon's Lair.
It felt like it was overly on rails due to the "press A button to NOT DIE! - NO! do it AGAIN!" gameplay, but was still fun with the killingness, but that spider boss pissed me off when I got to it's second phase, which turned me from a definate purchase when I see it cheap to a "maybe when it's ultra-cheap". Too much Dragon's Lair gameplay for me. Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: AutomaticZen on June 16, 2009, 12:49:33 PM If someone hadn't written one of these, I would've. I picked it up for $30 and at that price it's worth it.
I'm only four levels in and I've: - Stopped a jumbo jet using only ninja wire and my bare hands. - Surfed a missile shot by a boss back at the boss - Rode a motorcycle down from the sky, bouncing for vehicle to vehicle. (All these vehicles being spit out by the giant worm boss) It's God of War meets Dragon's Lair. It's full of crazy spectacle. It has to be played at least once. And like Armored Core, you can color your own ninja! Buy it cheap if you find it! Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Yegolev on June 16, 2009, 03:18:22 PM Yours is convincing. You had me at stopping the jumbo jet.
Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Azazel on October 16, 2009, 10:20:25 PM Got it ultra-cheap from Play-Asia. It is what it is. No masterpiece, but as a cheap muchabout it's decent so far.
Title: Re: Ninja Blade – From Software – XB2 Post by: Azazel on September 28, 2011, 09:30:22 PM So I had put this aside after 10 minutes when I got it, because I got distracted by something else. Picked it up and tried to play it today. Got up to the first boss. I found the QTEs annoying, since you're watching the cutscene and then PRESS X TO NOT DIE comes up suddenly, and that you have cutscenes pretty much after every small group of enemies, only some of which are QTE. Luckily the QTEs aren't punitive, so there's that. Your mileage may vary, but I found the huge numbers of cutscenes really fucking intrusive.
As in, I'd kill some enemies and a cutscene would immediately start, I found myself uttering "oh for fuck's sake" and the like over and over again when the game suddenly took my control away from me (again) and decided to show me how cool it thinks it is (again). What I kept thinking was that the game would probably be more fun to watch someone else play than to actually play yourself, because it does look pretty spectacular via the endless QTEs and cutscenes. I got up to the end-of-level boss of the first level, but got frustrated after a couple of goes. So I ejected it. I'll probably try it once more, then get pissed off again, then never bother to play it again. I got pissed off enough by the first level, so I can't see myself playing through all nine. It's not like old-school arcade game hard or anything, I just found the boss battle tedious and, yes, boring. It's like an old-school Japanese design thing where you have to do various things in a specific order to break down the boss, following and noticing the patterns and so forth.. that kind of design doesn't appeal to me in this kind of game (yet I can handle it in something like WoW - go figure) - must be the implementation? There's four major mechanics to the game, as far as I can see: 1) Melee - simple button mashing but decent enough 2) Platforming - pretty simple again, not good, not especially bad, it's just there. 3) QTEing - you might love it or hate it, I simply didn't enjoy it. 4) Boss Fights - I didn't enjoy it. YMMV. Anyway, it's most likely cheap as all hell these days. I'd recommend giving it a rental if you found the previous BiiFs piqued your interest. I'd prefer to have my $15 back, personally. |